Igoe Leads Unbeaten Mounties to Western Mass Final
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Lucy Igoe scored one goal and set up another Saturday night to send the Mount Greylock girls soccer team past Lenox and back to the title game of the Western Massachusetts tournament.
The second-seeeded Mounties kept their unbeaten season going at 15-0-3 and earned a date on Tuesday at West Springfield High School against top-seeded Monson.
Mount Greylock’s two goals came 11 minutes apart in the first half and on similar plays.
First, Igoe played a cross from Norah Lopez that eluded Lenox keeper Ella Hall (eight saves).
Then, in the 30th minute, Igoe sent a cross from deep on the left wing side into the 18 for Mila Marcisz, who finished for her fifth goal of the season.
“It’s just switching the field,” Igoe said of Mount Greylock’s early effectiveness with crosses. “Their defense would bunch up and all attack one spot, so if we could quickly cross the ball, there was normally no one on the other people, and that’s how we got both our goals.”
Igoe ran her goal total to eight and her assists to seven on the season in the win.
The Mounties controlled play most of the first half but only managed the two scores against Hall and the Lenox defense.
Perhaps the best chance to get the third goal came in the 37th minute, when Molly Sullivan fired a shot from distance that rang off the crossbar. Maire Scanlon appeared to be in position to settle the rebound all alone in the middle of the 18, but she was whistled for offsides on the play.
The Mounties again nearly stretched their lead at the start of the second half when Molly Sullivan took a try from the doorstep on a cross the right wing, but Hall made a diving save to keep it a two-goal margin.
Moments later, Lopez ran on a cross from the left wing and took a shot inside the 6 that Hall was able to stop in the 52nd minute.
And just two minutes later, Marcisz had a shot from the top of the 18 that went just high.
Shortly after that, Lenox found its footing and began to keep Mount Greylock pinned in its end for much of the second half.
Mai O’Connor needed to make just three saves to earn her fifth straight shutout, but save No. 3 was the stop of the night.
In the 69th minute, Lenox leading scorer Aliza Munch found some space near the top of the 18 and fired a shot on goal that O’Connor was able to leap for and deflect up and over the crossbar for a corner kick.
“She’s the last girl we want to have with the ball in the center of the field, top of the box,” Mount Greylock coach Tom Ostheimer said of Munch. “May O’Connor, she has been huge all year. She knows that she’s got to not try to catch any high ball but just get it over the bar. And she’s really good about that. Her timing is strong.”
Munch, of course, is probably the first person Lenox wants to see with the ball in the final third, and the Millionaires (7-8-2) did a much better job of getting into that position late, which was an encouraging sign as they get ready for next week’s state tournament.
“I liked the second half,” Lenox coach Brian Seminara said. “The first half, we had a few little mental blips, and, unfortunately, two of them resulted in goals. But we dug deep. It was too little, too late.
“The last 40 minutes were good. We just need to keep doing that into the next game, whenever that may be.”
Mount Greylock knows its next opponent and knows the challenge posed by Monson (16-0-2), the top-ranked team in the state in Division 5 according to the most recent MIAA power rankings.
“They’re obviously the favorite and we’re the underdog, and I’d say we have absolutely nothing to lose,” Ostheimer said. “We held our seed, and they held seed, and here we go. What could be more exciting?
“Our motto all year has been, ‘One game at a time,’ and I think having that undefeated regular season, it’s put a lot of pressure on us. And in many ways, it’s put us in that playoff mentality where every game is a must win because we wanted to preserve that undefeated streak.”